FALLOUT 2022

    As we come towards the closing of the year... y'know what? Idk even know what I was gonna write here lol. But ask me what one of my skills are and I'll tell you... phonetically spelling out how singers pronounce their lyrics. I'm proud of that for some reason lol. THIS IS HOW MY YEAR WILL END.
Also, resolutions don't... hold much weight for me. I'm kinda dumb so am always trying to expand on stuff anyway, but the important thing here is... There's a Steam sale going on right now, and that's... that's where my attention is. So much to buy... so little time in the day.

Well, I figure I could write one last post before the end of this year. We're in the Commonwealth, and it's the coolest thing ever mostly because the rare times we do leave the house for leisure, it's like... Fallout 4. Everywhere.

But I'll just start from when we arrived.
My mom was waiting for us with Peruvian style chicken soup.

Best chicken soup of all time. It's traditionally made with hen. Has oregano, green onion, i think a little bit of ginger? I can't remember. Some other stuff. It's really rich. It has to be or we won't eat it lmao. And it's gotta have its lime and aji - two staples in Peruvian cuisine. She also had chicha morada ready for us. Which I'm actually drinking right now, as well. I make it back home for Mr. Chicken and the Chicken family, but sometimes we don't have limes and the whole thing is garbage so we settle for garbage. My mom can never find out.
Idk how to describe it, but Mark Wiens loses his shit when he tries both if you wanna see that here.
I don't blame him, I lose my shit every time I have it and I grew up with it.

We also got to see Scarlet again. The last time we saw her 2 years ago, she was barely 5 months old and my parents were taking her home from the shelter before we had to leave for our flight back home.

She is massive. It surprised us. The shelter told us she's probably mixed with Scottish Fold. Their guess was from her nubby almost non-existent ears. Other than that, they had no idea. Seeing her in person now though, I'm convinced she's half Maine Coon.
Besides her giant size, her face has that Ron Perlman-ism to it. Which I think has become a pretty solid measure on gauging whether your cat is a Maine Coon or not. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But am I wrong tho

Does your cat look like Ron Perlman?
If no: Unlikely Maine Coon
If yes: Very likely Maine Coon 

Does your cat look kinda like Ron Perlman in Beauty and the Beast from 1987?
If no: Not Maine Coon
If yes: Undeniable confirmation of Ron Perlman genetics in cat aka Maine Coon.

Her face is so weird. I can't describe it. Like, the lower half of her face, or muzzle or whatever, looks wide and huge and not typical of like, cats lol. It's like, humanish. It's weird. My mom says people remark on her features often.

She's half-Ron Perlman, I'm sure of it.

I was so close to getting a fountain water thing for her, but Mr. Chicken said it'd be more of a hassle, and she already has her routine with my mom- quality sink time and all. He's right. I definitely wouldn't wanna impair that.

When we arrived, my mom handed me a Grogu.

And my skin is losing its shit,

And outer-most layer, apparently. It's so mad and dry and peeling and breaking out. And I'm just trynna work with my skin to calm it down, but she's not having any of my shit. Guess I'll get over it.


Did it!

Since we got here, mom's been cooking every day. She can't stop.

Won't stop.

Mr. Chicken's loving it. The following day after we got here, she made my favorite dish; Carapulcra. Sooooo good. My all-time favorite is either this one or Olluquito.
My mom said we can't make Olluquito here ever, and it legit makes me sad. I'd only ever have it in Peru. It's a root/potato species that isn't a thing... or is hard to get here in the States? idk. Lame tho, cuz Olluquito is fucking amazing.
Substitute? Nah. It has its own flavor. Can't sub olluco. The Incans didn't sub olluco, we aren't about to either.

I'm so annoying, I derail everything lol.

Anyway, yeah he's been living it up on mom's food. I'm surprised I only gained 2lbs throughout the time I've been here.

Dish 2. Carapulcra (w/ pork) with chicha morada and of course the aji (huacatay chili paste). Huacatay is black mint. Crazy fragrant. With yellow chilis in it, queso fresco and milk and seasoning and and and idk. Mom's love. It's delicious. Staple for Peruvian cuisine.
And of course, Inca Kola.

I remember these little knick knacks from when I was little. They were kitchen pieces for my barbies lmao

And the booze.
She had us take a shot of Pisco, and Anis :D

Mr. Chicken appreciated its smoothness.

So, my dad wanted to go to the outdoorsy store to look at shoes. It's amazing, they go out to window shop instead of just browsing amazon. That's a fortitude I lack lol. Anywho, he loves that place, it's a hunter's paradise.

Tons of taxidermy.

And so many choices of hot sauce waaaaah. I want all of it.
We didn't get any tho.
It was cool in there. I remember when this placed opened, and me and my dumb friends would go there and take pictures w/ the animals. Who are stuffed. And dead.

These are still there after all these years. Like, no new ones lol.

*TOP voice*
Lawngtime noshee,
long time noe shee

Lawngtime noshee,

long time noe shee, lawlawng time noe shee

long time nooosheeeee

The store is massive. There was on in Vegoose, but we didn't go inside.

My only disappointment was that almost everyone in there wasn't wearing a mask. It was us and maybe 2 other shoppers lol. No one else wore one. Pretty incredible.

And since the big outdoorsy store is connected to our mall, I wanted to stop by where I used to work.

My old EB Games was here. So many fun memories. A lot of staff and security liked to come and just hang out with us throughout the day. We'd get a lot of shady trade-ins too LOL. But it was fun. Except for the time a supervisor was sexist towards me and got fired for bringing a gun with him BUT THEN IT GOT BOUGHT OUT BY GAMESTOP and the manager that transferred in was awful and I walked out lol.

Despite how shitty it was to work for Gamestop back then (idk what's changed since then), seeing it like this is sad.

And this...

Was where Suncoast used to be.
Sigh.

So sad.
I had so much fun at the mall with friends as a kiddo. I miss how lively it was and how it'd get decorated for every holiday. And it was somewhere to go and was legit a good time. I'm sad for kids now that won't have that. They have no clue.

There was a lone Christmas tree in the center of the mall w/ some nutcracker statues. But it felt lonely.

Good trip, tho.

In-between stuff that I'm helping my mom sort out, Mr. Chicken has been relaxing and being a potato. That's all I want for him, really lol. I've been a potato too. Relaxing in my own way. Our internal clocks are 3 hours behind so our sleeping schedules are whack but... it's been nice to decompress.

I found some old yearbooks

Made me smile and cringe at the same time :)

My mom decorated for Christmas.

On Christmas day, we continued to be potatoes. I've never sat in front of a television as much as I've done so while staying here.

It's awful. I need to do something with my hands lol
My mom introduced me to this mobile game called Match 3D. Crazy fun. So I've been doing that when I can't sit still for too long. (If I have ADD or ADHD I frankly don't give a shit as it only pertains to physiology and ultimately changes nothing in my cognitive approach to life.) But it's SO GOOD.
A bunch of little items get thrown onto the screen and you drag the matching ones down into the little ... area. And you gotta match em all up before the timer expires. You unlock more items and it becomes more challenging but omg I love it lol. And it keeps your brain busy forever. Delicious.
Sometimes my mom and I will just sit and play mobile games. Or I'll help her pass something in Candy Crush. Ugh I love her so much.

Scarlet had to get into her holiday sweater

That cat is so patient with my mom. She hates it so much.

But she puts up with it for my mom. She won't let anyone else handle her except my mom. And my mom grabs her and pulls her and smashes kisses into her face and baby talks her and ... all of it. And Scarlet lets her. It's amazing. I can't touch her for too long before she hisses at me and glares a warning to stay back. Or she'll try to eviscerate my arm again.

This year for Halloween, my mom bought her a green and orange tutu with a witch hat and a wig.
And Scarlet tolerated it lmao.

If we did that to Ofelia, we'd probably be in the emergency room still. If anyone of us besides my mom tried to put the christmas sweater on Scarlet, I'm positive we'd be in the emergency room.

My mom plays with her like nothing. I'm jealous lol. Scarlet doesn't hate me but she definitely sets boundaries, haha.

Christmas Eve for us is the crescendo.

We don't do anything on actual Christmas day.
So we'll have a feast and celebrate with family at midnight, open presents, hang out and eat until we all succumb to food coma.

My mom didn't go as hard this year as she has in the past, which was good because we only had 10 people total.
I brought the durian.

Harrisburg has an Asian market now. Amazing
I will say though, these Malay durians aren't as good as the Indonesian ones we get in Cali. Idk what it was but this one tasted way more garlic-y. Like, overwhelmingly so. Nowhere near as tasty or fruity as the ones I'm used to.

Only my dad and uncle tried it, everyone else was put off by the smell. But at least now they can say they know what durian is lol

Hispanic Christmas morning staple

Stovetop hot chocolate and panettone.
We gon have some more tonight, I can't wait

We were talking about the cat and how she doesn't have stuff to like, climb much around the house. She lays on the ground a lot. My parents also said she scratches the furniture so we moved her scratching post to where the furniture is. It's helped.

And we offered to buy her a cat tree to have down in the living room and one up in their bedroom. My dad was like no, I'll make one for her right now. And we were like year right. And he grabbed Mr. Chicken, took him out to the shed and they came back 4 hours later with this:

We dug up all of her toys, but she seems to like the little wand thing the most. She also didn't take to the bed much up there. But when they brought it in, I was impressed lol. Mr. Chicken and my dad's first project together :)
Was really sweet.

Scarlet won't touch it, but here's hoping that changes over time.

We watched Encanto.

Eh.

I'll just say that I unfairly compared it to Coco. Coco is unmistakably, in every aspect, Mexican. And so beautifully expressed.
Encanto is... everything ever with a Latin American skin on it.
I will say....
I liked how their powers becoming the characters' identities was addressed. Like, that's all they were valued as from the family. And whatsherface didn't have a thing, so she just had herself and her genuine love for her family. The teenager brother who was a shapeshifter; I wish was a more obvious message to how frail our identity is when we're younger. Aside from that, it was pretty, but meh.

Sleepy.

Arroz chaufa.

This was fun. Peru has a lot of Asian influence. One of those is the food. Especially this dish.
In Mandarin, fried rice is Chao Fan.
chaufa is basically a Spanish speaker trying to say chao fan.
Thus this dish is born. It's well known and popular. And I love how my mom makes it.
Peruvian fried rice ^_^

The day after Christmas, we had a baby snow fall. Mr. Chicken had been so looking forward to this.

He's been around snow, just never as it was actually snowing. 

It was cute seeing his excited like this. So wholesome lol

The street looked so tranquil.

I miss the snow. And days like that. It's so quiet. The roads are quiet. The air is crisp. Everything looks serene and fluffy and calm. Even the birds are quiet. There's a stillness that brings so much peace to me. I miss snow days so much.

Apparently, the East coast was robbed this year lol. The Northwest coast is getting all the snow this year! I mean good for them but damnit I want some too T_T

But it's cool, we got this lol. Didn't last long, but it's something.
Years ago we'd get several feet of snow. SIGH.

Fwuffy!

Foooooood

This one is arroz con pato. Rice with duck.
That yellow stuff w/ the potato is papa a la huancaina.
A lot of stuff is named in Quechua. Carapulcra. Olluco. Huancina. Huacatay.
I can't....
My grandma on my dad's side spoke it. Never taught my dad except for a few words. I never got to learn it :(
It's the leftover language from the Incans. Hard as shit. It's got clickies. Sounds cool but yeaaaahhh.
DERAILED AGAIN- DAMNIT.
Sorry. Papa a la huancaina. Pretty sure restaurants in LA serve it as an appetizer. There are two versions. There's this spicy one and there's the green version called ocopa. That one's made with huacatay instead of the yellow aji.

Flavor. So much flavor. Layers of it. Tons of it.
And the chicha morada with the huancaina aji on the side. Necessary.
Woof.

One thing I did wanna have while visiting is my favorite burrito spot growing up.

NEATO BURRITOOOOO

Chipotle wasn't a thing back then. So... this little chain is owned by my old bosses who also owned a vintage shop w/ a piercing studio where I apprenticed before moving to California in 2008. The shop closed, but the burrito chain is still going strong, and I remember there was a Neato downstairs from work that I'd get lunch from and they were so amazing. And still are. The owners used to live in San Francisco before moving to PA and starting their own businesses, and they wanted to bring California style burritos here. They did.

I like em before they have different flavored tortillas. And salsas of the day. And their burritos don't all taste the same. And they have cajun chicken and it's actually good. And ugh. It's like a Chipotle but with way more options and variety.

Anyway. We went. and I was happy. And I bought a pin lol.

IMPORTANT

Go up to a Peruvian and say "aji and lime" and they'll hug you.
I told my mom that one time, I went to a Peruvian restaraunt that served ceviche made with lemon. Her face. omg. The INSULT. The OFFENSE. I never wanna hurt her ever again.

I hope this is what Vietnamese people feel when they're given lemons with their pho instead of limes. Because that happened to me one time and I took offense LOL

Next up

Mr. Chicken's favorite: Tallarines verde! Literal translation is just green spaghetti. I can make this but it's a bitch because basil is apparently hard to find not attached to a whole ass plant?


So, my parents are like omg why don't you guys go out? And we're like, nah, we're good.
So my parents took us out lol. My dad said he wanted to go to the riverfront to take a walk. I thought he meant the riverfront in downtown off a main road.

He took us to City Island. Which I totally forgot existed. It was an old settlement now made into a ... walky area. It's really pretty. The coolest thing is that because these states are old as fuck, so are the towns, buildings, and landmarks. Pennsylvania has a metric ton of historical shit everywhere. But even cooler, it's like walking around in Fallout 4 :)

So i went kinda nuts with photos, and some I even doctored a bit
uwu

 ♫ HAY EVERYBODY DID THE NEWS GET AROUND
'BOUT A GUUUYY
NAAAMED

BUTCHER PETE

OMG RADIATED WATERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
OH NOOO I WANNA GO INNIT

There were a lot of old buildings I wanted to go in, but couldn't :(

GEEEEEEEEEESE

We took a bunch of cyoo photos of my parents.

Harrisburg

And this like, old trading post from like the 1700s is still chillin here.

I wanted to go in it, but couldn't so I went around to see if there were windows to look into. And instead destroyed my illusion.

Everything was boarded up and on wheels. It's fine.

LOOKIT AWWW DOSE CHICKENS

I don't give these pants the credit they deserve. I bought these when I still lived in Harrisburg. They were just dumb leggings that I paid $40 for because they looked cool. But when they came, I realized that the lining was fleece. Fleece lined leggings. 15 years later... these are fantastic for the winter here in Pennsylvania. Past me was an idiot, but future me appreciates her.

Railroad tracks! Sooooo cool WANNA KNOW WHY??
BECAUSE IN FALLOUT 4, YOU GET THE RAILWAY RIFLE THAT SHOOTS RAILROAD SPIKES AND TAKES OUT MUTANTS IN LIKE ONE HIT
Best gun.
I got it from doing the quest.

Ugh that whole storyline UGH

Derailed again. Oops.

As we were making out way back, there was a little area my parents said we should check out.

So we did.

This cyoo little station for the baby train. It looked like a little fuckin.... tradepost that I wanted to go into and look around but couldn't :(

And there was this gated off carousel that was old and creepy.

And behind there along the side of the tracks was this buildling

Absolutely, 100% wanted to go inside

HELLO?!?
(but couldn't)

This whole area was like a little outpost and I wanted to explore everything and go inside all of the buildings and just... be a dumbass, y'know? Sigh.

On the way out, there was a barn.

I LOVE BARNS.
Wanna know who doesn't like barns?

She doesn't like in the barn.
The horses keep her up at night.

Name rhymes with Tamara Borgan.

Couldn't go in there either. But it's active because outside, there was a huge thing of hay and fresh-ish poop. And as I got closer, it smelled like horses.

LOOK. STUFF!

My mom was saying that there was an old bridge nearby that collapsed like 20 years ago. It was the one pedestrians used to get across, but was never rebuilt. As we were making out way out, she pointed down this trail. And guess who hauled ass down it?

God, the feeling I got walking down that road. I would've totally walked further down if the area hadn't been blocked off.

♫ I was walkin' along, mindin' my business, when out of an orange colored skyyyy ♫
FLASH

BAM

ALAKAZAM

My dad came after me worried, then realized it was fine so he took selfies

That was our trip. Man. So cool. I could totally move back here lol. Mr. Chicken has family in Boston. If I really wanted to lose my shitty Fallout fangirl mind, we'd live there. But I'm appreciating it here more and more in a way that I didn't when I was younger.

We'll see where life takes us.


With that, I bid you all dear readers, the fondest adieu for 2021.

It's literally just another day, but I understand that for many people, it's a new slate and provides symbolism for transitionary .... thingies. Maybe reflect on stuff. Idk. Whatever the New Year means to you, I hope its coming encourages fortitude, self-love, reflection, and recalibrates your inner navigations towards your aspirations - even if they suck ass. Suck ass aspirtions are still a foundation for something, so never discredit that.

On that note, pls do not touch me ever or expect me to put my mask down for a photo even outside. We haven't had covid and graciously decline.

Happy New Year. Be safe. Order take out. Take care of each other. Don't drink and drive and all that.
Listen to Edith Piaf. k byyyee